by Ross Bagley

Created on: June 13, 2009   Last Updated: June 15, 2009

Hunting is a recreation and is far more ethical than 99% of shrink-wrapped meat. As for the specific use of the word "sport", I'm not entirely comfortable with it, but since the possible uses of the word "sport" are as varied as the uses of the word "art", the decision to think of hunting as a sport or recreation or necessity or whatever is up to the individual hunter. Since the personal challenge of hunting can be quite substantial, in those cases, the use of the word "sport" is absolutely legitimate. Some variations on hunting, such as "canned hunts" where an animal is released from a cage and then shot in a wild setting push this label to its limit. I personally see nothing sporting or even interesting about that sort of a kill and strongly resist even calling it a hunt.

Most of the arguments in this debate are actually arguments against hunting at all, so the rest of my article will address these arguments, primarily from an ethics and health perspective. It is my assertion that hunting healthy wild animals for food is substantially more ethical than indiscriminately delegating the raising and killing of livestock, the way 99% of shoppers buy their meat. It is also marginally healthier, but not for the reasons normally mentioned.

When a hunter responsibly harvests a mature animal, we can tell a story that is quite congruent with the natural lives of all wild animals. A wild animal living in its natural environment: walking, running, playing, breeding, fighting, sleeping in nature, and then for a few seconds or minutes (or occasionally hours), the animal is in distress and pain before it dies. In the case of harvested game, the carcass will feed the hunter, the hunter's family, possibly his community. The more responsible the hunter, the shorter the period of distress. The ideal kill is a "drop" where the animal simply falls dead on the spot. One moment the animal is in a pastoral paradise, the way it has lived its whole life; the next moment, darkness and void.

Contrast that life with the life of a modern "grain-fed" cow. When a cow is taken from grass fields at the age of six months and introduced into the industrial production of supermarket meat, it is not treated well from that moment until it's death two years later. "Not treated well" is actually a significant lie of omission. Really, the cow is tortured for the rest of it's life and dies badly, frequently still conscious and panicked by the time it reaches the knives waiting to carve it into steaks,

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